


Between Light and Darkness

by The_Violet_Howler



Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [3]
Category: Kingdom Hearts (Video Games)
Genre: Analysis, Essays, Gen, Heroine's Journey, Meta, Nonfiction, Originally Posted on Tumblr
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-20
Updated: 2020-06-20
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:55:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,143
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24814933
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/The_Violet_Howler/pseuds/The_Violet_Howler
Summary: How the games’ emphasis on the importance of balance between Light and Darkness mirrors the core themes of the Heroine’s Journey.
Series: Kingdom Hearts and the Heroine's Journey [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1765777
Comments: 5
Kudos: 23





	Between Light and Darkness

As I briefly touched on in “The Heroine’s Journey of Sora”, a major component of the Heroine’s Journey is the protagonist being pressured to suppress important parts of who they are in order to conform to a set of traits that the world around them sees as desirable. More often than not, the traits that the main character suppresses are ones which the audience associates with femininity, and the ones the main character conforms to coded as masculine. This is why Maureen Murdock’s template gives its stages labels like “Identification with the Masculine” and “Urgent Yearning to Reconnect with the Feminine”. **  
**

In a story that correctly follows this version of the Heroine’s Journey, the protagonist of a coming of age narrative learns to balance these traits in order to grow into a mature adult. This makes the emphasis on the importance of balance between light and darkness in the Kingdom Hearts series and how neither force can exist without the other a perfect illustration of this theme of balance. Even more so when you take into account that light and darkness are each coded to represent specific traits. 

If you pay careful attention to the way that characters talk about light and their connections throughout the series, there is a recurring pattern where light represents and is generated by the connections between people’s hearts[1]. When Sora tells Kairi in the first game about what he remembered about his time as a Heartless, he says “Our hearts are connected. And the light from our hearts broke through the darkness[2].” When confronted before the boss fight of Toy Box, Young Xehanort says “if the light of friendship is a form of power… the darkness of being alone is a power… even greater,”[3] and talks about how Buzz’s tremendous darkness is the direct result of his separation from Andy. 

So if light represents people’s bonds and emotional connections, then darkness represents solitude and the absence of connection. It fits with what we have seen across the series thus far, as the antagonists who we have seen utilizing darkness were all focused on themselves with no concern for anyone else, and why darkness is not something inherently bad, but too much of it is. I believe part of the reason some fans still associate darkness with evil is because it’s more immediately obvious to casual plays how easily it can be misused. The consequences of relying too heavily on darkness are shown overtly throughout the series, while the consequences of over-relying on light have been a lot more subtle, and have only been shown more explicitly in Kingdom Hearts III. 

In the first game, Donald and Goofy openly tell Sora “no frowning. No sad face” and “This boat runs on happy faces[2]” when the trio agrees to travel together. Though Donald and Goofy mean well, they are through implication sending the message that the peacefulness of the group takes priority over an individual’s problems. And we see in future games how this early attitude has affected Sora, as we see him repeatedly hide his own sadness and frustration in front of his friends, the only negative emotion he displays without attempting to hide it is anger. This is very similar to the beginning of the 2015 Pixar movie _Inside Out_ , where Joy does everything possible to keep Sadness away from the control panel at Headquarters in Riley’s mind.

So if relying too much on darkness translates to focusing only on your own desires and not caring about anyone else, focusing too much on light looks like focusing so much on other people that you ignore your own needs. Taken to its logical extreme a light-based villain in a Kingdom Hearts game would personify the words of the late Leonard Nimoy in his iconic role as Spock: “The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.[4]” The best demonstration of this in the series thus far is Eraqus’ willingness to kill Ven and Terra in an attempt to thwart Xehanort, disregarding his own feelings for the sake of his perceived Greater Good. 

And the more one focuses on the light of their connections at the expense of their own emotional needs, the more their inner darkness is amplified. “The closer you get to the light, the greater your shadow becomes,” after all[2]. Putting on a positive front for the people around you only results in your negative emotions building and building until they finally explode out in a way that is harmful to both yourself and others. This is precisely what Young Xehanort speaks of in Re:Mind when he tells the Master of Masters about how the light of people he met on his world tour was a farce: every person has light and darkness in their heart, but denying their darkness only makes it stronger.

Sora has spent the entire series ignoring or refusing to acknowledge his own hurt, putting on a smile so that his friends won’t worry about him, and in Kingdom Hearts III the cracks in his facade are finally beginning to show. Even aside from his breakdown at the Keyblade Graveyard, we see his negative emotions explode out of him through Rage Form, and we see throughout the game how badly failing the Mark of Mastery exam has rattled him. He still has not accepted that his own darkness is not something inherently negative. 

As of the end of the Kingdom Hearts III Secret Episode, Sora is officially entering the Descent stage of the Heroine’s Journey. It is at this point that the protagonist must confront the parts of themselves they have been burying in order to find balance and move forward. It’s not unintentional that Riku is the character with the healthiest approach to handling one’s own inner darkness because in many stories I know of that follow the Heroine’s Journey the protagonist is able to achieve the necessary balance to move forward by learning from the example of their Animus.

Even if one ignores the metaphors or symbolism of the games and only looks on a surface level, the divide between light and darkness in the Kingdom Hearts series still aligns with the core themes of the Heroine’s Journey. Strip away all the literary analysis of what light and darkness in this series represent, and you still have a very literal depiction of a world that stresses the importance of balance between a trait that the dominant social group sees as desirable and one that the group does not. The contrasting traits whose balance is central to the Heroine’s Journey are presented in the Kingdom Hearts universe as metaphysical forces that have tangible effects on the material world, presenting through implication that in order to achieve true balance in the outside world, Sora must learn to achieve that same balance within himself.

**Author's Note:**

> #### Sources:
> 
> [1] Reblog conversation between @kitsoa and @blowingoffsteam2 about the metaphysics of the Kingdom Hearts universe; November 16, 2018. https://blowingoffsteam2.tumblr.com/post/179836265129/kitsoa-blowingoffsteam2-sorry-this-post-is  
> [2] Kingdom Hearts; Square Enix, 2002.  
> [3] Kingdom Hearts III; Square Enix, 2019.  
> [4] Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan. Paramount Pictures, 1982.


End file.
